


from a lost and distant shore

by CumbersomeWit



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Additional Warnings May Apply, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Drug Use, First Person, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV John, Present Tense, Sherlock and John meet too soon to help either of them, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CumbersomeWit/pseuds/CumbersomeWit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are all doing what we can to survive, John.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	from a lost and distant shore

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a comforting story. If you are looking for hurt/comfort then you are about to read the wrong fic. 
> 
> Also, a head-nod to abundantlyqueer's fic "Two Two One Bravo Baker", which is loosely referenced in one of the scenes.
> 
> Enjoy!

I am standing here and I am feeling everything. My chest is swollen with emotion. It’s hard to breathe. Each laboured breath is a victory, a small bloom of triumph that dissipates into the air as I exhale.

Is this how you felt, standing here?

I try to imagine it. What it would have felt like, calculating how much pain you would feel before you could not feel pain anymore. Finding solitude in the equation.

How many times have I fantasied about pulling you back from this edge? Grabbing your coat just as your weight tips and holding on to you? I think you would have liked that. If I was up here with you, instead of all the way down there. It’s so lonely up here. You must have been so alone, gauging all that distance between us. Watching me watch you.

I think I understand now. This coldness, the way it numbs everything save for the deep, intracranial pressure of being alone; it’d be enough to make anyone want to –

Inhale. Exhale.

It’s alright, Sherlock. I get it now. I get why you are underground like rainwater and I am here, conjuring you in my mind.

Still breathing.

 

***

 

I find you hunched over a lab table, glaring at a petri dish like it has mortally offended you. I would be amused if not for the fact that it is one in the morning and you have likely done something illegal to get into this lab.

“Did you break in?” I exclaim from the doorway, crossing my arms.

“I didn’t _break_ anything,” you scoff, as if you’d known I was here all along. I would be surprised if you hadn’t. “I deduced the key code. The numbers are sequentially worn; it was hardly difficult.”

I run a hand through my hair. Of course you broke into the science lab without actually breaking anything. How inspired of you. “You do know that’s not actually allowed, right?” I opine. You don’t indicate you’ve heard me. Just carry on staring at that petri dish.

Well, I’m not leaving without you. I suppose you already know that. I walk up behind you and look into the dish, expecting to see some sort of viral colony refusing to grow. I should know by now that you don’t waste your time with anything so … normal.

“Is that a tumour?” I ask, because it can’t be anything else, but it isn’t like any tumour I’ve seen before.

“Small cell lung carcinoma. Dr Baker said I should stop trying to impress him,” you state, completely off track. Your back is stiff. “He said I’d have to cure cancer and even I wasn’t capable of that.”

This is new. “Are you? Trying to impress him?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yes.”

I lift an eyebrow. Well that’s news to me. Dr Baker’s a prat, you shouldn’t bother with him. I’d tell you that, even, except I secretly sort of admire how much he doesn’t take your attitude. Instead I observe; “That’s quite a tiny tumour. Even for a small-cell.”

“I shrunk it.”

I blink. “You did what?”

“Well I first slowed down the progression, of course, it would be impossible to work with a rapid growth in any sort of detail. A nanodiamond-paclitaxel conjugation was the only feasible hypothesis afterward; ND by itself has no effect on the tumorigenesis of lung cancer cells, I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of it yet,” you wave your hand as if this hypothesis isn’t the most ground-breaking observation this laboratory has ever seen. “Everything was going fine, a seventy-five percent mean decrease across eight samples, and then it just _stopped_. It’s like the tumour can’t possibly shrink any further. I’m so _close!_ ” You exclaim, squeezing your eyes shut.

I shake my head. No. You can’t have. You’re the most incredible genius I’ve ever known but even you can’t make cancer cells disappear.

Your eyes snap open and the world stills, brightens, expands. Your chest is heaving with the force of your breaths. You look like a child in your delight, eyes wide and so, so young. “I’ve got it,” you whisper, and then louder, your hands finding my shoulders and shaking, shaking, shaking, “John, I’ve got it!”

I look at you like I’ve never seen you before. Dark hair and skin like moonlight. The creative genius, frozen in a moment of exaltation, between hypothesis and discovery.

I’m only in the second year of my medical degree and already you’re putting me out of business.

 

***

 

You release a sleepy yawn and drape yourself over the counter next to me, as graceful and yielding as a drugged ox. You’ve slept in today, having spent all of yesterday hidden in the storeroom on the fifth floor with eight text books and a cup of tea, avoiding Dr Baker and his endless, inane questions. You’re secretly pleased, though, I can tell. Even your smugness can’t override your delight.

I make us some breakfast because no matter how many cancers you can cure, you are utterly hopeless in the kitchen. As I take out a pan and place it on the tiny electrical stove I realise I don’t actually remember the last time you ate. I don’t take enough care of you.

“What’re you making?” You mumble. One eye regards the pan while the other continues to sleep.

“Nothing specific,” I shrug, cracking an egg into the pan. “Just throwing things together and seeing if they turn out.”

You scowl. “I’ve never gotten the hang of cooking like that,” you admit, almost as if blaming me.

“You’ve never gotten the hang of cooking at all,” I correct you. Your scowl intensifies and I amend, a little guiltily, “I suspect it’s because you haven’t tried to. It’s taken me years to cook like this and not make a right mess of things. Mum … wasn’t around much, so.” I shrug, tearing bits of ham and throwing them into the pan, trying to dismiss the way your gaze transforms into something heavy along my side.

“So you learnt to cook from whatever was at hand to feed yourself and your younger sister,” you conclude. Not pityingly, just stating. Another fact of the life of John Watson.

I don’t reply. I don’t need to, and even if I wanted to I have no idea what I’d say. Things like this, deeply personal, painful things, you’re no good with them. I know. It doesn’t bother me. It’s sort of refreshing, even. I don’t want pity and you don’t offer any. Our pains are seamless.

You are quiet for a long time, watching me. I don’t mind. I’ve nearly finished making a second batch of very whimsical omelettes when you say, “Maybe I’ll learn one day. How to cook.” You pause, eyes trained on the void between my shoulder and the wall. “You could teach me.”

Oh.

I flip the omelette onto a paper plate and hand it to you. You might eat half of it today. “Yeah,” I smile, and you smile back, small and uncertain and shockingly, comfortingly human. “One day.”

 

***

 

The common room is quiet during dinner-time, so we head down to watch the telly. You don’t like crowds and I don’t like how people look at you now, like you’re something unpleasant they’ve found on the bottom of their shoe. This is the easiest way.

I take the armchair and you sprawl across the couch like you own it. Your eyes hover just above the telly, eyebrows drawn, not really looking at anything. They’re dark-grey today, like storm clouds. I wonder if you’re thinking the same thing as me, about all those people who don’t know any better but to hate you. Don’t think about it, Sherlock. There’s no one here but me. And I know better.

The news switches to an update on Afghanistan, and I nearly look away before a picture appears on the screen. I cringe. Your eyes don’t even waver as you take in the blurred patches of blood covering the clothes of four British soldiers, staring at us from an abandoned home in Musa Quala. Murdered by the Taliban. Advertised by them.

“Look at that,” you say, nearly reverently. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

I stare at you. The words are out of my mouth before I can filter them. “Jesus, are you _high_?”

Your eyes flicker but I don’t feel any guilt at abusing that soft spot of your past; you just called a murder scene _beautiful_.

“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” you frown. “I mean to say that the photograph is very aesthetically pleasing. Don’t look at me like that,” you snap, and I close my mouth without realising it had ever fallen open, “look at _it_. Taken from above at that angle, heads tilted and staring at us as if we’re God. Phrase written in blood just visible at the bottom of the frame, standing out against a backdrop of grey. ‘ _Rache_ ’. It’s an artwork, John. A photograph made to be looked at. To get a reaction.”

“Rache …?”

“German, meaning revenge. Someone with a German background? No, stupid, of course not. Educated, then. Second world war. Unfazed by the outbreak in Musa Quala until just recently. A family member caught in the crossfire, then. Possibly a sibling, most likely the mother. ‘Rache’, German word, second world war, four British soldiers? They’re plotting the extermination of Queen and county.”

“Brilliant,” I blurt.

The corner of your mouth twitches and it’s like a small gift until it goes away, swiftly, replaced with your heavy eyes. “The grieving will do anything to give their loss meaning. What better way to do that than by enraging Great Britain with an act of revenge so beautiful that it cannot be ignored?” Your body quietens, draws into itself. “We are all doing what we can to survive, John.”

You stare at the television and I wonder what it is that you’re doing. To survive.

 

***

 

Its three o’clock in the morning and the presence of death is a crushing force, pinning me to this bed. I’m afraid to look away from you. You are fluid in your despair. Body moving like water; a shifting, unstable thing. You’re about to spill.

You play your violin with agony, each note trembling like the expanding ripples of a disturbed pond. Your nose so close to the wood but battling your breath, holding it down before gasping at it, clawing it back into your lungs.

You were standing right there when you got the call. Hung up the phone and discontinued movement, like still water before a storm. Something died in you along with your mother, something that stole the deep vibrations of your voice beyond the words, “Mummy’s dead.”

The only one in the world who didn’t want to change you.

You can play all night. I’ll let you. Because I know what this is, Sherlock. I did it too, sometimes, sitting on the pavement outside our council flat, wondering which star my father would pretend to be. You’re trying to stop yourself from following her, aren’t you? Crying out to her and waiting for a response.

Keep playing. I want you to be here in the morning.

 

***

 

You learn certain skills while living in chaos. After everything you’ve been through, everything I’ve seen, I can’t imagine your life being anything but a tempestuous resistance. You’ve been surviving on a day to day basis because it’s all you know to do. It’s your ultimate skill.

So I shouldn’t be surprised when I walk into our room a week later and find you tucked into the nether-space between the bed and the wall, not breathing.

“Sherlock,” I say, completely monotone. I am confirming that this is you. My mind supplies me with your voice, your sharp lips whispering quiet syllables. _We are all doing what we can to survive, John._

I am with you in an instant, hands gripping your shoulders and shaking, shaking, shaking. Two years of medical training fly out the window. I only stay still long enough to realise you’re breathing when I see the syringe lying next to you. I freeze.

“John,” you rasp. I can hardly hear you through the rush of blood in my ears.

 _You idiot_ , I think, then say it out loud to see the flicker of guilt in your eyes as I check your pulse. You do not tell me I am wrong. It hurts.

Whatever you took was mild, thank god, because your blood is pulsing leisurely beneath my fingertips. Too leisurely. I pick up the syringe, bring it to my nose. Inhale. Clinical, mild; morphine? Did you take this from the lab? I contemplate calling the nurse, sending you to hospital, but then I think of all the trouble you’d get yourself into, all the chemicals that would be within your grasp. It terrifies me more than you, like this. Agreeable and guilty.

I put you to bed and you don’t complain, just hang on to me long after you’re lying beneath the sheets, hand curled in the material pooled at my hip where I sit next to you. The morphine seems like a blessing for a moment and I cringe, push the thought away. The only blessing right now is that your heart hasn’t stopped.

You come back to yourself in increments. I watch your body regain its tension ; stitch itself back together from the boneless heap on the floor into something half-formed, between man and mirage. Two hours later, when you’re mostly yourself again, I demand, “Why?”

You are heavy-lidded but mostly conscious, watching me like I will go away. I won’t. “I needed it to slow down,” you say, each word pronounced carefully. “I needed to make sense of it.”

“What?” I ask, even though I think I know.

“ _Everything_. All our lives we’re just trying to survive. Look at you, John.” You gesture to me with a heavy arm. “Your clothes are falling off of you but you learnt to sew to keep them on your back. You learnt to cook from nothing to keep yourself and your sister alive. You’re studying a medical degree to fix other people because you need to take care of others in order to feel useful. And I …” you pause, hands clenching into fists and breath drawn once, twice. “I’ve based my whole life on survival, John. Everything I’ve ever accomplished, ever created, has just been ways to break the monotony of _existing_. And I don’t know anymore. If it’s at all worth it. I don’t know.”

Your eyes plead with me to understand, and I do, I really, really do. I get it, Sherlock. You were scared. You didn’t know how to cope with thinking like that, watching the world unravel and not knowing if you had enough strength to find out why. You wanted to find a way to make sense of yourself.

I tighten my hand around yours and nod my head. I can’t convey these things with words, Sherlock. I’m afraid that if I try, it’ll be too much for you. For the both of us. But I’ll keep holding you, just like this. Is it enough? Is it enough for you to know that I know?

You look away from me.

We don’t sleep. You fill the night with confessions; tiny, fragile words that trickle from your lips. You tell me you have to be imaginative to keep yourself alive when your father hates you and your elder brother is half way to ruling Great Britain and your therapist has labelled you a stranger, awaking every morning to find yourself lost. You tell me that morphine is for remembering and cocaine is for forgetting and combining the two incorrectly will create a black hole in the pit of your stomach that’ll suck you in until there’s nothing left of you but a syringe and a dark you-shaped hole in the universe. You tell me you formulate the right combination of the two so that surviving is a thrill. You tell me all this as you grip my hand and the sun rises behind the curtains, as elusive and incorporeal as a midnight cloud.

I want to tell you that taking drugs is a waste of your talents, but that’d be like wishing you were dead.

You’re doing enough of that for the both of us.

 

***

 

One day I teach you how to cook and you don’t get it right. You’re not angry. You have resigned yourself to the fact that survival is not something that comes easily to you.

You go out to find some air when the sky is purpling around the edges, having survived the day and in need of a rest. I go out to find you.

And watch.

 

***

 

I am standing here and I am feeling everything you would have felt, if you were standing next to me. I imagine these breaths are yours, that these lungs are your lungs, pushing and pulling the air through this nose. Your nose.

I open my eyes.

You are standing in front of me. Dark hair and skin like moonlight. Arms outstretched and waiting. Your chest rises and falls beneath your thick coat and I am breathless, filled. This is you. This is your back facing me, your coat, your scent. I step up behind you, press myself to your back and you are nearly warm, nearly solid as you lean your head back and look at me with those eyes. And it’s not okay but it’s nearly enough, standing here together, between the idea and the discovery.

Still breathing.


End file.
